What makes a company successful–a big transformative idea, a massive market, and a team of committed and passionate experts. Rx Bandz, a late-stage biotech, has successfully transformed a “why-not” idea into a powerful solution.
Rx Bandz is developing a platform of the world’s smallest auto-injectors and novel formulations for emergency and military medicine. Its auto-injectors will deliver a wide range of injectable medications more efficiently, more conveniently and in more circumstances than current technology allows. Its novel drug formulations will help save lives.
Compact, rugged, easy-to-use drug delivery platforms, Rx Bandz’ auto-injectors are being tested with drugs for pain, severe allergies and noncompressible hemorrhages. However, they can be used for a wide range of injectable medications, including highly viscous biologics from less than 1mL to 5mL.
Jessica Walsh, founder and CEO of Rx Bandz shares,“Our mission is to make giving life-saving injectable medication simple for anyone, anytime and anywhere.” The company is stacking up major achievements as it advances commercialization in the $64 billion global auto-injector market.
She is a seasoned entrepreneur with decades of experience developing and implementing game-changing technologies. Under her leadership, the company created a portfolio of patents, setting new standards in size, performance, and durability.
Rx Bandz is leading the shift in emergency auto-injectors and advancements that redefine the world’s perception of these critical medical devices. Sharing the same mission, the team has decades of experience and includes a world-class epinephrine chemist, bio-mechanical engineers with medical device patents and a quality management expert who advised the FDA. Walsh asserts, ”They have brought other auto-injectors to market. The company’s extraordinary success comes from this dream team.”
Rx Bandz is currently engaged in discussions around licensing its device to pharmaceutical companies. Walsh shares, “Companies spend millions developing their formulations and can increase compliance when they choose a patient-centric device like ours.”
Finding a Better Solution
Rx Bandz began with the frustrating experience of its CEO Jessica Walsh. She suffered a severe reaction to a bee sting. Her physician told her to always carry an epinephrine auto-injector. She found them cumbersome and had to duct tape them to her arms when she went running.
“I looked ridiculous. There had to be a better solution. Sixty percent of people prescribed these devices don’t always carry them. We asked hundreds of other patients, and they confirmed that traditional auto-injectors are not only cumbersome and embarrassing to carry but also confusing to operate,” she said.
“The more I researched, the more I realized there was no reason these old-fashioned auto-injectors were so big. They had been designed for World War II and hadn’t changed much since then.”
Saving Lives, Saving Money
Rx Bandz’ completely redesigned traditional auto-injector, MiniJect, is the world’s smallest auto-injector, and packed with features patients want. Rx Bandz has created versatile auto-injector platforms: MiniJect (1 mL), OmniJect, (up to 3mL) and the MultiJect (dual chamber cartridge). The MiniJect is just two and a half inches long.
Rx Bandz Transforms Emergency Medicine with Innovative MiniJect® and Beyond
In traditional 6-inch pen-like devices, a spring releases a rod that jams a needle into the patient and does not retract, potentially causing dangerous secondary needle pricks. Rx Bandz’ MiniJect works in less than half a second and fully retracts. This removes secondary needle pricks as well as skin tears, especially if the patient flinches. It also serves as its own Sharps container, making disposal safer. It’s a two-step operation (take off the cap and inject), and it’s easy to tell which is the needle end. Its simplified two-step operation is also waterproof and rugged to fit patients’ lifestyles rather than the other way around.
The Rx Bandz team knew they were on the right track when they surveyed patients; 98% of patients showed they could correctly operate it, even when there were no instructions. This compares to only 18% of patients who know how to work the current auto-injectors. “Our Rx Bandz redesigned epinephrine MiniJect® is simple, and it will treat life-threatening allergies.”
The family of auto-injectors can also protect oxygen-sensitive drugs like epinephrine, potentially extending its shelf life from one to two years, saving millions of dollars for customers.
Walsh said, “Our team also came up with an elegant and versatile operating system that can be throttled to deliver a wide range of injectable medications, including vaccines, biologics and medications for chronic illnesses from different pharmaceutical companies.”
With an impressive 13 DoD contracts, the company modified its epinephrine device to deliver hydromorphone (pain), ketamine (sedation) and reformulated tranexamic acid to be delivered via auto-injector instead of IV, for noncompressible hemorrhages. These contracts are eligible for 1:1 matching investor funds since the DoD wants to promote investments in the technologies they need and support. They also give Rx Bandz sole-sourcing rights for future DoD contracts and can be used to leverage additional funding from the military. The end goal of these contracts is to position Rx Bandz to sell its devices and drugs to the DoD. This ongoing support makes the company’s Series A even more attractive.
Walsh said, “In the military, there’s an expression–ounces equal pounds – so a lightweight and compact auto-injector is exactly what they were looking for. It turns out that an active kid, a fashion-forward teen and a Special Force Medic all want an auto-injector that is compact, rugged, lightweight and easy to operate.
Pioneering Treatment for Noncompressible Hemorrhages
When the company received a contract to build an auto-injector for tranexamic acid (TXA) for noncompressible hemorrhages, the team realized they would also have to reformulate the drug for intramuscular delivery. Currently, TXA is given intravenously (IV), which means medics must set up an IV line with a saline bag. This makes both the medic and wounded warrior targets in the battle. Walsh explains, “The military market is vast, as each medic will carry many TXA auto-injectors.”
The company will soon announce results that show its TXA drug formulation out performs and lasts longer than the standard IV dose, giving the wounded a better chance of surviving. This is critical since 25 percent of all preventable injuries result from noncompressible hemorrhages in the military, and it's the leading cause of death in civilian trauma.
Similarly, the EMS market wants a faster way to deliver this life-saving medication, and that requires fewer training hours. Rx Bandz expects to be first-to-market. With its TXA auto-injector. There’s another large opportunity to save lives across the globe. Every year, 14 million women will develop, and 55,000 women will die from post-partum hemorrhages; most could be saved if TXA was given. The challenge is that many of these women live in remote villages or medically scarce situations. By moving from the current IV delivery to auto-injector, less intensively trained EMT’s and midwives can deliver the drug when needed. This is part of Rx Bandz mission to democratize emergency health care.
Walsh said, “I feel confident that with our committed and credentialed team and our technically elegant products, Rx Bandz has all the ingredients to succeed while saving millions of lives worldwide.“
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